adorno's theory of authoritarian personality

What are the 4 characteristics of the authoritarian personality ?

1. hostile to those who are of “inferior status”

2. obedient of people with high status

3. rigid in their own opinions and beliefs

4. conventional, upholding traditional values

What was the authoritarian personality measured using ?
What did it say about people who scored highly ?

• measured using the California F-scale

• ppl who scored highly tended to have been raised by parents who used an authoritarian parenting style (including use of physical punishment)

Why would having strict parents lead to an authoritarian personality ?

adorno believed that this was because the individual cannot express hostility towards their parents so they displace this hostility onto safer targets - those who are weaker

Give one evaluation point for this study ?

point - adorno based his theory on research that used a questionnaire (F-scale)

explanation - the f-scale has been criticised because it has a response bias/ the questions are written in a way that giving a yes answer is always an authoritarian response

link - this challenges the validity of the theory because it is based on poor evidence

Give another evaluation point for this study ?

point - adorno has not provided proof that an authoritarian personality acc causes high levels of obedience

explanation - he’s only found a correlation between personality type and obedience

link - a correlation doesn’t equal causation - we can’t know that authoritarian personality causes obedience cause it may be another factor so this suggests that other factors may explain the apparent link between the auth. personal. and obedience

Give a 3rd evaluation point for this study ?

point - adorno has not proved that personality alone is responsible for obedience

explanation - other researchers have found that ppl with lower educational levels are more obedient

link - suggest that other dispositional factors may be important and personality type is not enough for its own